OTT streaming is a thriving arena for broadcasters to future-proof their business. But the domain is becoming increasingly competitive.
Customer acquisition is no longer as easy as before. Simultaneously, adding growing subscription fatigue and inflation to the mix makes it even more complex to combat rising churn levels.
So what's the game-changing formula for growth and success? Does it lie in running creative marketing campaigns or offering compelling prices?
While these actions influence subscriber growth and retention, the secret lies in having a full understanding and knowing the complex reality of your ott subscriber growth and retention performance.
Without it, it’ll be like taking a leap in the dark.
In this article, we’ll explore how you can gather and act upon these insights using Cleeng's broadcaster-friendly solutions.
The importance of understanding subscriber behavior in SVOD streaming
To succeed at subscriber acquisition and retention, you need to know the behavior of your streaming subscribers before you can guide them to do what you want.
For example, understanding the different faces of subscriber behavior - what compels them to convert or churn. When you know this minutely, you can take the necessary steps to turn the tides in your favor at the right time.
But how do you know the profound realities of what's happening with your sea of subscribers?
With so many users streaming content around the clock, the best way to know what's happening is to rely on intelligent data analytics and tools.
Advanced tools are designed to collect subscriber activity data and present what it means in a digestible fashion in the best way ahead.
They can bifurcate your streaming audience and offer both dynamic and predictive insights. These insights will help you target different audience groups with tailor-made strategies to inspire them to act in your favor.
For example, let's take a look at how Cleeng's analytics solution can help you ace subscriber acquisition and retention:
Mastering acquisition with conversion funnel optimization using Cleeng
It's straightforward to understand that getting a good volume of potential subscribers on your website is only half the acquisition game.
The other is enticing visitors enough to take the next step and convert them into paying subscribers.
If you want to grow your streaming bottom line, it is paramount to understand the different acquisition stages and optimize the customer conversion funnel.
To that end, the Cleeng dashboard reveals information that helps you ascertain how you're faring with your subscriber acquisition efforts.
Some of these include:
New account creation
The dashboard reveals how many new accounts you created from those who visited. It also provides forecasts around what you can expect to achieve in the coming week, along with a measure of your performance against the forecast. Any drops here mean you need to spend more time exploring acquisition.
Conversion to offers
You may be running various marketing campaigns, such as providing free trials, coupon discounts, and so on, to convert customers. The conversion to offer metrics reveal whether they're working or it's time for your marketing team to test some other strategy.
Time to conversion
In business, time is money — making efficient conversions matter. Combining high conversion rates with short conversion times means your funnel works well. The Cleeng dashboard also reveals how you're faring in this aspect to guide adjustments in your approach.
Defeating churn with churn analysis and the right retention strategies
If your churn rate is high and is impacting your profits and growth, it means you have a leaky bucket.
If that’s the case, it wouldn’t matter how many new subscribers you can acquire because you’ll end up losing them at some point.
To control churn, you’ll need to fix the leaky bucket — preferably with the help of tools with rich insights like the Cleeng dashboard.
Some of the primary metrics you can track on Cleeng’s ChurnIQ include the following:
- Absolute and percentile number of churned subscribers
- Monthly Churn Rate
- Average Subscriber Lifecycle
- Months completed before churning
An Alert feature notifies if a metric meets or exceeds a specific threshold. Studying this helps you know the status quo concerning churn and where you're heading.
Moreover, with predictive capabilities, the SRM™ suite has advanced capabilities to highlight any red flags that can help you take proactive measures instead of reacting to churn after it has occurred.
Read More: What is ChurnIQ & Why You Need It to Boost Customer Loyalty and Improve Retention
How to access insights with Cleeng?
Cleeng's analytics platform functions in conjunction with your existing systems. You can install it quickly, without friction, and plug the dashboard into any third-party system.
This can help with identity and access management, subscriber management, billing systems, customer care solutions, and user satisfaction/ QoE/ QoS solutions. The central dashboard pulls data, then aggregates it into a data lake, digests it, and presents it into persona-based graphs, as shown in the diagram below:
With this, you can undertake different personalized measures to ace acquisition and retention, such as:
- Offer discounts to price-sensitive audience groups
- Run seasonal promotions such as free trials or coupon campaigns to entice visitors
- Show personalized content recommendations to increase content engagement
Bottom Line: Respond, don’t react
If you want to grow your streaming business, taking a proactive approach is essential instead of merely reacting to the different circumstances unfolding in a maturing market.
This is possible only with an objective data-oriented approach. Invest in tools like Cleeng that offer intelligent data insights and predictions that can help you increase customer acquisition and reduce churn.
Rely on data and insights on your OTT subscriber growth and retention to create winning strategies. The answer is at your fingertips.
